Painting and decorating
Project-based interior and exterior work priced by area and labour, with crews that scale up and down by season.
Six short steps. No email or account.
Family
Home services and trades
Work happens at the customer's property, usually with a crew and a vehicle.
- Priority decisions
- 8
Operating reality
What makes this different
The realities that change which tools can actually work for you.
Estimating accuracy is the whole margin, so quoting tools that handle area and labour rates matter.
Crews are often seasonal and mixed employee/contractor, complicating payroll and cover.
Before-and-after photography drives referrals as strongly as it does for exterior cleaning.
Where to start
The decisions that matter here, in order
You do not have to take them in this order, and you do not have to take all of them. This is where most businesses like yours start.
- 1Estimates and quotes
Send a professional quote quickly, and know when it is accepted.
- 2Business insurance
Cover the things that could end the business in one bad afternoon.
- 3Job and crew management
Run jobs end to end: schedule, dispatch, complete, invoice.
- 4Invoicing
Send the bill, and let people pay it without writing a cheque.
- 5Accounting software
Track income and expenses so tax time is a report, not an archaeology dig.
- 6Paying contractors
Pay 1099 help and collect the paperwork you need for January.
- 7Reviews and reputation
Ask happy customers to review you, and respond when they do.
- 8Capturing leads
Catch enquiries from every channel and respond fast.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about your painting and decorating business: your team, where the work happens and what you want to fix first. You get an operating plan in the order to tackle it, with the must-haves and comparison points for each area.
Answers
Common questions
- What software does a painting and decorating business need?
- Project-based interior and exterior work priced by area and labour, with crews that scale up and down by season. The decisions that matter most are 8 areas, starting with the ones tied to how the work actually gets done and paid for.
- What makes running a painting and decorating business different?
- Estimating accuracy is the whole margin, so quoting tools that handle area and labour rates matter. Crews are often seasonal and mixed employee/contractor, complicating payroll and cover. Before-and-after photography drives referrals as strongly as it does for exterior cleaning.